Monday, July 26, 2010

HELL- An impossible fiction

We inhabit the most technologically advanced nation on the face of the Earth, and yet 80% in assorted surveys profess to believe in "miracles" and more than 57% sincerely believe "Hell" is a genuine afterlife abode. Never mind that not one scintilla of hard evidence has been found, other than in corrupted ancient manuscripts - one of whose objectives was to extort unbelievers into joining them.

Why do these atavistic beliefs persist, when even simple logic can disprove them? Make no mistake here that "Hell" is a degenerate and ignoble fiction and the product of crude, vicious minds. These are the same type that used to apply wasps and hornets to people’s wounds and of having blood sucking slugs attached to one's external genitalia to remove "demonic humors". What happened is that in each case, the “patient” died in horrible agony. The inbred vicious minds who thought that they were “healing” were actually torturing the poor wretches. The wasps didn’t extract toxins, they continued to sting the victim until she died. The leeches continued to suck blood until the poor victim was bloodless. In the same way, the Hell peddlers – as on their various derelict blogs- think they are healing by writing about their savage swill, but they are doing untold harm.

Some fundies, on their blogs, try to address the issue of critics in a sideways manner with statements such as: "Critics of hell argue that if God knew that people would reject Him and eventuate in such a horrible place as hell , then why did He create them in the first place ? Wouldn't it have been better to have never existed than to exist and go to hell ? It is important to note that nonexistence cannot be said to be a better condition than any kind of existence , since nonexistence is nothing "

But like all fundies, he misses the point. The point isn't about categories of "existence v. non-existence" (and besides is he saying God existing ALONE is "nothing"?), but whether divine perfection is more embraced by the primordial state of nothingness than creation! Looking at it in this way, the onus is where it needs to be: on the divinity for choosing to embrace violence (including the eternal violence inflicted in Hell) by its act of creation because he had to know (being omniscient) it would lead to tens of billions of humans being damned. Thus, materially and in every way (especially LOGICALLY) it would surely have been better had the state of nothingness (e.g. God alone, no added creation) been maintained - then that over a hundred billion humans be burned in Hell. Unless the fundie is arguing that to have existed but then earned damnation in Hell for eternity is better than nothingness! I can imagine how all the billions of Buddhists, Hindus and others would be delighted to know about that!

A far more subtle divine intellect would appreciate that burning up his "creation" makes no sense, and he'd do better (have less waste) by "recycling" souls (assuming they exist- but since human and chimp cytochrome -c are the same, it's likely they don't) through multiple lives until they are honed to the perfection desired. As opposed to one life, one chance - no matter where you're born or how (e.g. as a drug addict's infant) then to do or be damned.

"Hell" is not only retrogressive, but utterly stupid. It is inchoate as a principle for sanction because for it to exist contradicts the putative nature of the divinity that most believers posit. The odd and strange fact is they lack the brain power to see the contradictions inherent in their insane swill.

In the accompanying diagrams I show the core problem and the paradox, from a logical perspective. The assumptions operating are that:

1) God exists and is INFINITE

2) Hell also exists as a place of eternal punishmentWe see that these assumptions taken in tandem create enormous contradiction which I depict in Fig. 1. That is, Hell must be located within the infinite deity - AS PART OF IT! In other words, the eternal place of damnation must actually be WITHIN God's own Being!

Consider, IF God as infinite is taken literally, this can only mean there is no place where he isn't. Either he is infinite or not infinite. If he is infinite, and HELL also exists, then Hell must be part of the same infinity. It cannot be isolated from it or else we have a condition such as shown in Fig. 2 - where Hell is apart from God's being.

BUT - if this is so, then God can no longer be infinite because something exists (Hell) in addition to his being wherein he conducts punishments.

So, we have these ineffable logical conclusions:

EITHER - Hell exists but GOD is not infinite.

OR

GOD is infinite, and Hell must exist WITHIN God. (But Heaven does also)

Up to now, I've seen no fundie or evangelical clever enough to resolve the Hell-God=infinite paradox. There could be two reasons: 1) none of them is smart enough to do it, or 2) they know deep down in their little atavistic pea brains that the paradox is logically insoluble because their assumptions are in error. (Or, just as bad, they allow the blatherings in an ancient book to trump the importance of examining the assumptions.)

Thus, if they want to preserve their "Hell" they will have to admit their God isn't infinite. If they demand God to be infinite, they will have to jettison their "Hell'.

Will they? Hardly, because hard logic never works on their neurons, especially the ones in their amygdala. However, until these Hell believers either change their assumptions or re-work them for consistency, we are entitled to take them no more seriously than the incoherent fulminations of a street drunk or a crazed coke head. Without some manner of logical coherence, all they have is a puerile invention based more on mental "vomit" than any abiding reality.

1 comment:

"Thus, materially and in every way (especially LOGICALLY) it would surely have been better had the state of nothingness (e.g. God alone, no added creation) been maintained - then that over a hundred billion humans be burned in Hell. Unless the fundie is arguing that to have existed but then earned damnation in Hell for eternity is better than nothingness!"

Totally brilliant takedown of the whole mythology of Hell! I loved how you used the fundie's (your bro's) own illogic against him by turning the false categorie premise into the one based on the deity's perfection.

Obviously, if he created a universe in which billions would be eternally tormented he was not a loving God but a sadist! Only a sadist would engineer a universe in which such immense suffering would ensue when he'd have to know before hand.

The diagrams illustrating the Hell-God paradox are also priceless. They reduce to simple logic the impossibility of a Hell unless the infinitude of the deity is sacrificed. But then, what need for a deity? We could as well go with Spinoza's God or just worship nature!

Never mind. None of this will phase the hidebound, purblind fundies who will find some rationalization to justify preserving Hell, while they avoid dealing with your arguments.

But who cares? If all they have is bombastic, over the top "biblical text" comebacks you've already won!

About Me

Specialized in space physics and solar physics, developed first astronomy curriculum for Caribbean secondary schools, has written twelve books - the most recent: Modern Physics: Notes, Problems and Solutions; and earlier,: BEYOND ATHEISM, BEYOND GOD, ;Astronomy & Astrophysics: Notes, Problems and Solutions', 'Physics Notes for Advanced Level&#39, Mathematical Excursions in Brane Space, Selected Analyses in Solar Flare Plasma Dynamics; and 'A History of Caribbean Secondary School Astronomy'. It details the background to my development and implementation of the first ever astronomy curriculum for secondary schools in the Caribbean.